Friday, July 2, 2010

Welcome to another Fab Five Friday. Every Friday I showcase five blogs, websites or posts that I think you will enjoy. Scroll down below for dispatch from our Yellowstone vacation.

ILUVMYBUGS has created an adorable fun-in-the-sun card. It is so cute that you will want to make your own. I know I do!

Platto Shoes allows you to customize your shoes using your own ribbon. If you are looking for a new use for your ribbon, click here. I think the wedges are more my style.

Paper Crafts magazine provides monthly bonus projects that are so cute. In fact, if you click here you will find two full years of free projects.

Have you seen the new Everywhere punch by Fiskars? It was featured in the August issue of Scrapbooks magazine. They haven't appeared in my area yet, so let me know if you have purchased one. It looks like fun and it is on my wish list.

And now, for a vacation update! We're on day 3 of our Yellowstone vacation and we've had some amazing experiences!

We stayed the first night in Fishing Bridge, where most of the connections had been knocked out by a lightning storm the night before. That was okay because we left early to get to our favorite campground near Norris Geyser basin. We were only there for a few hours and I was down admiring the beautiful creek when a grizzly came lumbering towards me! We scampered for the safety of our camper, taking a few tenters inside with us. The rangers tried to haze the bear away, but it decided to have a look at the campsites instead.

Once in the campground, it visited our neighbor's campsite, who had just finished a big breakfast with bacon for six people. The bacon drippings were in the campfire, ready to be burned, but the bear decided the grease soaked paper towels would be a better snack. It then moved on to chew on their generator and put some nice teeth marks in the plastic cover.

The rangers managed to haze it with firecracker shotgun shells to the otherside of the campground, but on its way, it flattened a tent where the owners had hastily thrown a coconut scented sun screen bottle inside. That proved to be a bad idea, as the bear chewed a hole in the tent to investigate it. The owners of the tent were from England/Switzerland and had only been in the park for one hour. They showed us the true British "stiff upper lip", when their comment was, "Well, we're in a national park with wild animals, what would one expect?"

The bear seemed to move on, so we went to Mammoth to see the elk and were rewarded with these pretty little elk calves in a yard behind one of the employee cabins. Later on, we saw three wolves cross the Yellowstone river near Canyon and saw a mother grizzly with three cubs on an elk kill in the Hayden Valley.

As of 6:30 this morning, we awoke to more loud booms and explosions. The bear had returned and the rangers were again hazing it away. I spoke to a ranger and she said they planned to capture it and relocate it, because it was so determined to get free food.

I enjoyed your photos and stories. I would have been TERRIFIED with a bear so close!I haven't seen that Fiskars Everywhere Punch either - but will keep my eyes open for it!Enjoy the rest of your holiday!!